


There and Back Again: A Bounders Tale

by Spookypanda2004



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: BAMF Bilbo Baggins, Bilbo is So Done, Dwarf & Hobbit Cultural Differences, Dwarf Culture & Customs, Female Bilbo Baggins, Gen, Hobbit Culture & Customs, No Beta, Sassy Bilbo Baggins, THAT IS A PROMISE, We Die Like Men, Young Bilbo Baggins, bilbo punches a goblin in the face, no really
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-11
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-17 17:33:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29969874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spookypanda2004/pseuds/Spookypanda2004
Summary: In a Hole in the ground, there lived a Hobbit. But this is not your usual hobbit. No, she was a rather different sort, really, and all of the Shire knew it. She was a Bounder. Her name is Aconite Baggins.
Relationships: Bilbo Baggins & Thorin's Company
Comments: 6
Kudos: 25





	1. Introduction

**Author's Note:**

> so this is my first fic, partly because I can't find what I wanted to read, but mostly because I may or may not have caught covid and my schoolwork is at my grandparents. Also, there will be no regular update schedule. My muse is faulty at best, and I am a semester behind in my junior year, soooo... Anywho, if there's anything you want to see in a fic, let me know. Also, I get inspiration from what I read, including other fanfic from this site, so if you see something from your work or another work you know, let me know so I can give credit.

In a Hole in the ground, there lived a Hobbit. But this is not your usual hobbit. No, she was a rather different sort, really, and all of the Shire knew it. She was a Bounder. Her name is Aconite Baggins.

Something you should know about hobbits is that they hate change. Most Hobbits hate it so much that they rather ignore it entirely until it might as well be doing the can-can naked in the streets during the afternoon market. This, of course, applies to people too. If someone is deemed different, then they are gently nudged in the right direction, and if that doesn’t work, then they ignore the problem until it goes away, or rather, they go away. And Aconite Baggins is the epitome of different.

When Aconite was young, she was the embodiment of what a Baggins was(on the surface, at least). She was smart, polite, and never late for dinner. Her older brother on the other hand was most certainly a Took. Bilbo Baggins was an unruly tween with a knack for trouble. Or, at least, what trouble could be found in the shire. And they made quite a pair. While Bilbo would be out trying to find elves, and practicing sword fighting, Aconite would be in her father’s study pouring over maps and old books. And because of this, while her brother was brash and bold, she was able to be brash, bold, and cunning.

That was before the Fell Winter


	2. Fell Winter

The winter of 2927 was not a sudden thing. Most didn’t even realize what was coming until it was too late. The first clue was the harvest, or rather, the lack of one because of a hard frost that came the week before. The hobbits didn’t think much of it because, hey, there’s always trade down in the markets. And they would be right, except that that hard frost hit from just west of Rivendell clear to the Blue Mountains. Right about now is when Belladonna Baggins nee Took realized something was not quite right. So she wrote the elves for the first time, asking for trade for food to be brought.  
The second clue was when the snow came early in October. The temperature dropped suddenly, and the snow started piling up. Most hobbits shrugged it off, figuring that it was just a cold snap and it would melt off in a week or so. Right about now is when the Tooks realized something wasn’t right and Gerontius Took, Thain of the Shire, wrote to the elves asking for supplies to survive the winter. There was no response.   
The bounders and the Brandybucks were the third to realize something was very wrong when wolf tracks were spotted on the other side of the Brandywine. Mirabella Took wrote her sister that day and sent Bilbo home with it that afternoon because although the boy may be a bounder-in-training, he did not need to be here when the river froze over, because it was mid-December and she knew the worst was still to come.  
The rest of the Shire finally caught on when the river froze and the Horn of Buckland sounded. The horn only sounded for one reason, the Shire was under siege. The Master of Buckland sent a letter to the elves and the rangers in Rivendell. There was no response.  
Meanwhile, back in Hobbiton, Aconite was out in the woods with her mother looking for firewood. Belladonna had gotten the letter from her sister and knew that things were getting dangerous. See, Belladonna knew the stories about a fell winter 120 years ago. While most faunts thought it was exaggerated, Belladonna never did. And so when the frost hit and the snows came, Belladonna barricaded the windows and started rationing the food. She prayed that it would be enough.   
\--------------------------------------------------------------------------  
By January, no one dared venture out, except one bounder-in-training. And that would soon prove to be a fatal mistake.   
Aconite knew something was wrong when Bilbo wasn’t back by mid-afternoon. So she grabbed her coat and her woolen socks and her mother's bow and went to find him. And she did, surrounded by fell wolves and backed against the party tree in the middle of Hobbiton.  
“Bilbo!” she screamed. “Climb!” and Bilbo turned to jump in the tree while Aconite shot the first in the head. Grabbing another arrow, she drew back and bam. Something rammed into her shoulder and threw her to the ground. Aconite rolled over to see the biggest and ugliest wolf she had ever seen ten feet away in the snow with a goblin on its back. Aconite screamed while Bilbo watched in horror from the tree. Grabbing her bow she ran for the tree but she didn’t make it far before something clamped down on her calf. She screamed again and she heard a thud and watched as the wolf hit the ground as Bilbo drew back a second shot nailing the goblin in the forehead. Aconite limped as fast as she could to the tree while Bilbo was shooting anything that dares to come near her. When that wasn’t enough, he jumped out of the tree to haul his sister up and turned to follow her when an arrow caught him in the throat. Aconite froze. No, NoNoNoNoNo, please no, not her brother, NO! She heard someone screaming, maybe it was her.   
She was snapped out of it when her mother came charging down the hill daggers in hand killing the goblin that dared harm her daughter and kill her son. Aconite watched as her mother, with all the grace of an elf and the fury of a balrog cut through the monstrous wolves. She reached the bottom of the tree and took the bow from her daughter and helped her down from the tree. Tears were streaming down her face as the cold winter wind whipped through her hair. “Come,” she said, “let’s get you cleaned up and take care of your brother.” Belladonna scooped up her son from the ground and carried him back up the hill with Aconite beside her.  
Reaching the top of the hill saw Bungo Baggins standing at the door looking at his dead son and injured daughter. He stood aside as his wife brought him through the door, but as Aconite passed him; he grabbed her arm and hissed at her. “This is all your fault. If you had just stayed put in your room and told your mother or me, your brother wouldn’t be dead.” Aconite turned and looked her father in the eye. “I know,” she whispered.   
\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
In February, a sickness swept through the Shire, taking her father and a third of the shire with it. Aconite cried that night because she knew that her mother wouldn’t be far behind him. She wrote the elves, begging them to send healers, and sent it with a messenger bird. No one came.  
\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
In March, the rangers finally came with aid and chased the last of the wolves (although they called them wargs), and goblins away. By that point, half the shire was gone from the attacks, starvation, freezing to death, or the sickness.   
Aconite was among the starving by the time March came; her mother had passed the week before after she refused to even drink water. When Bungo passed, she just stopped, refused to eat, refused to drink, refused to even move. One morning, she didn’t wake up and Aconite Baggins found herself an orphan at 21, twelve years before her majority.   
In one season, she had lost everything: her parents, her brother, several friends, and cousins. And her home, because she wasn’t an adult for twelve more years and shire property laws say the daughters can’t inherit anyways, so the Sackville-Bagginses came to pack away her stuff, and Aconite was sent to live with her grandparents in Tookborough.


	3. An Unexpected Party (For the Dwarves and Hobbit, Anyways)

Aconite Baggins was having a rather productive day so far. She had already worked her morning shift with the bounders, went to the market, and had visited the Great Smiles to see her grandparents. She had just sat down after putting her stuff away and taking off her armor when a shadow loomed over her. Hand reaching toward her hip, she looked up to find a strange man dressed in grey robes. “Good morning,” she quipped.  
“What do you mean? Do you mean to wish me a good morning, or do you mean that it is a good morning whether I want it or not? Or, perhaps you mean to say that you feel good on this particular morning, or are you simply stating that this is a morning to be good on?”  
“I mean who are you, and what are you doing in my yard?”  
“I’m looking for someone to go on an adventure,” he began, glancing at her.  
“Well, even though you have the right part of the shire, at least, you have the wrong house. May I make a suggestion to visit the Great Smiles? Plenty of my cousins are in the business for adventuring. Now, I have a pie in the oven that I’m rather looking forward to, so if you don’t mind, Good morning.” She nodded and walked toward the door.  
“Well, as to think I’ve been good morning by the son of Belladonna Took as if I were selling buttons at the door!” And boy did that one hurt. “You’ve changed Bilbo Baggins, and not entirely for the better!”  
“And so what if I’ve changed! You think I would still be the same naive child I was before the fell winter? Before I lost everything? I’m truly sorry Grey One, but I have too many responsibilities to go wandering off! Now Good morning, and by that, I mean shove off!”  
Aconite grumbled as she marched up the path and slammed the door. “No good, old meddler. What am I supposed to do? Just get up and leave?”  
She turned back around as she heard a scratching on her door, but quickly forgot when she smelled smoke coming from the kitchen. “Not again!”  
\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
Aconite was strapping on her armor for patrol the next evening when she heard a knock on the front door. “Oh, honestly,” she huffed. “Coming!” She made her way to the door as they banged again. “Just hold your horses!” Dang, she thought, it’s like there are goblins running them down. Have they never heard of patience? She flung open the door to see a dwarf standing there. “Who are you and why are you here?” she asked, wary of the large figure. “Also, how the heck did you manage to get through the morning bounder patrol? Everyone has to see the Thain before being allowed to meet someone in the shire for official business, assuming that’s why you’re here.”  
“Dwalin, son of Fundin, at your service. What do you mean, why am I here? Tharkûn told us we were meeting here a month ago.” He said.  
Tharkûn? The grey one? The Meddler? He sent you a month ago? He showed up yesterday asking about adventures and I told him I couldn’t just run off into the blue like he wanted! I’m sorry, but you probably should come in. I have a shift in 20 minutes with the Bounders and I really can’t be late.”  
“It's fine lad, slow down. What do you mean showed up yesterday? He told us you agreed a month ago.” He nearly growled the last part.  
“He WHAT?! Bloody hills above, this is a mess. Alright, I really have to leave now if I don’t want to be in trouble, but you can make yourself at home. The pantry is down the hall and check everything before you eat it. I remember my mother telling me that not all races can eat the same plants we do. I thought I heard an “us” in there so if you wouldn’t mind you host yourselves that would be great! I should be back around midnight and any business you have will have to wait anyways because you need to meet with the Thain first. I’m really sorry to do this but I really must go!” Aconite shouted as she ran out the door, leaving a bewildered dwarf behind her, only to nearly run into another in the walk. “Terribly sorry, but you must be another one of the Meddlers group. There’s another already inside but I really must run!” Aconite dashed down the path and jumped the fence disappearing into the woods.  
“Any idea what that was about brother?” Balin asked?  
“Not a clue, except he wasn’t expecting us, and we have been lied to by Tharkûn. They did invite us all inside and welcomed us to the pantry, though,” he replied.  
“Well, it could have been worse,” the old dwarf sighed.  
“Oh, really, and how is that?” Dwalin asked.  
“Thorin or the boys could have been the first to arrive.”  
Dwalin snorted and walked inside while his brother sat down to wait for the others.  
\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
Aconite ran through the forest running over the strange encounter with the dwarf again. She wondered why on earth Gandalf, may all but one of his daffodils die, try to spring something like this on her, and called her her dead brother’s name. None of it made sense, but she would deal with it one thing at a time. First, she had to make it through the patrol.  
\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Coming home to find thirteen dwarrow having dinner in her dining room with Gandalf sitting in the corner sulking was not what she was expecting. Aconite quickly got over her mild shock and cleared her throat to introduce herself. “Hello, I’m Master Baggins, the owner of this lovely smile; if you could kindly introduce yourselves. I am sorry that I wasn’t here to greet most of you, as I had to go to work. I don’t know how much Master Dwalin told you, but I was not informed of this gathering tonight, or I would have been prepared for you already. Now the hour is late, so I really must see about getting you lot settled tonight. Any and all business will be conducted tomorrow, after you meet with the Thain, as is customary, although I’m sure Gandalf already told you that. I only have seven bedrooms to spare so you will have to double up.”  
Master Dwalin stood up first with the dwarf she ran into on her path. “Dwalin and Balin, sons of Fundin, at your service.”  
The rest took it from there.  
“Fili and Kili, sons of Dis, daughter of Thrain, son of Thror, King under the Mountain, at your service”  
“Oin and Gloin, sons of Groin, at your service”  
“Dori, Nori, and Ori, sons of Kori, at your service”  
“Bofur and Bombur, sons of Baurur, and our cousin, Bifur, who doesn’t speak westron, at your service”  
“Thorin Oakenshield, son of Thrain, son of Thror, King under the Mountain, at your service”  
Aconite raised her eyebrows when they mentioned the King under the Mountain bit. She was not expecting to host royalty. But, there was no use worrying over such things now, they could be dealt with later.  
“Alright, come on now, and we’ll sort out rooms tonight.” And deal with the rest tomorrow, she thought. Whatever the rest may be.


End file.
